


Jinae Police Department

by pilindiel



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Police, Dogs, Fluff, GRATUITOUS MENTIONS OF DOGS, M/M, POV First Person, POV Jean Kirstein, Police Officer Marco, Small Town Police Departments, Small Towns, lots of useless housing facts, police officer Jean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 15:26:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11382978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pilindiel/pseuds/pilindiel
Summary: Thankfully, I'm not the only one who can't sleep.  My partner wanders in, his dark green shirt catching my attention, and his sleeves are rolled up around the muscles of his forearms.  He's a stark contrast to the seventies retro brown and gray of the station décor.  He's all flushed cheeks and tan skin, deep brown eyes and a strong jawline.  But there's a softness to his features too, like he could bench press a tank and then offer to walk you home.





	Jinae Police Department

It's late. The coffee is stale and lukewarm on my tongue, but I can barely taste it over the already bad taste in my mouth. Jinae is a small town, just shy of four thousand residences, and only a handful of sites to see. It's charming in its own right; the town hall is always lit up around the holidays and the streets are kept clean, but it's one of those towns you drive through without any regard to the people who live there or their little lives and their little problems.

But that means when a problem _**does**_ happen, it goes to us, the Jinae Police Department.

There's a smattering of pictures tacked on the cork board in front of me, sharpie marks with names scrawled under Connie and Sasha's photos with names and brief explanations. Not that I really need them. I've memorized all the broken windows, all the cracked locks. Breaking and entering, but nothing stolen. Nothing lost. Nothing misplaced. Barely a whisper of curtains disturbed.

Connie got so bored at the crime scenes that he started taking pictures of the victim's dogs, all organized neatly by breed and name under the clutter of everything else.

Like I said: Jinae is a slow, sleepy town with slow, sleepy problems.

The rest of the station is dark save for this room; everyone else has gone home for the night but I can't stop the nagging in the back of my mind, the itch that pricks the back of my neck when there's a case I can't crack.

Thankfully, I'm not the only one who can't sleep. My partner wanders in, his dark green shirt catching my attention, and his sleeves are rolled up around the muscles of his forearms. He's a stark contrast to the seventies retro brown and gray of the station décor. He's all flushed cheeks and tan skin, deep brown eyes and a strong jawline. But there's a softness to his features too, like he could bench press a tank and then offer to walk you home.

“Cracked the code yet?” Marco asks, making a face after he sips from his own mug of tepid coffee-like sludge. He looks good for running on as much sleep as me; the purple bags under his eyes just draw you more to his handsome, movie-star face and the splash of freckles across the bridge of his nose. The tight leather straps of his chest holster clutch just the right amount of muscle as he shifts. I'm lingering too long, I know, but I blame my lack of sleep. My eyes skim over his thighs through his jeans before I force myself to look away, groaning. If Marco notices the flush rising up my neck he doesn't say it, and I scrub a frustrated hand down my face.

Marco chuckles and slides into the empty space beside me, bumping my hip playfully. “I'll take that as a 'no',” he hums.

I bump him back lightly, but I can't deny that little spark is sends up my spine, striking my nervous system with a different kind of restless energy.

_**Pull yourself together, Jean. You're at work.** _

I lean back and cross my arms, giving our board a scrutinizing stare and trying way too fucking hard to keep my hands to myself.

“I just don't _**get**_ it,” I grouse, “Why bother breaking into a house and not take anything?”

Marco's earthy eyes flick to the board and I try not to stare at the way his Adam's apple bobs when he swallows, the way his face shifts with his stony concentration, the tiny shudder of his eyebrow when I know he's onto something.

I run a hand through my undercut and breathe in slowly through my nose. I need to get some sleep – clearly _**not**_ getting it has made my thirst unquenchable.

“Maybe we're overthinking this,” Marco mutters, meeting my startled gaze.

Hastily, I take a sip of room-temperature mud and try to hide the croaking of my throat with a shrug. “What do you mean?” I ask, hoping the hitch in my voice isn't as loud as I think it is.

“Maybe they weren't looking for anything,” he explains, glancing over at me before turning his attention back to the board, “Maybe they were there for something else.”

I want to make a witty comment, to bring a smile to Marco's solemn face, but Marco just trails his eyes over to the pictures again and his profile is outlined by the faulty florescent lights. It stifles whatever words wanted to bubble up my throat and I find myself being dragged back to the task at hand.

I chew the inside of my cheek and try to kick my scattered brain back into working condition and away from the comfort of Marco at my side.

We've been partners for three months already, but it feels like so much longer. Like there's magnets beneath my skin that pull me into his orbit, that makes me quirk a smile when I don't want to. That makes me want to rub the tension between his shoulders and spend endless nights like this, just the two of us drinking a coffee-like substance at god-knows-what time while the rest of the world melts away.

But we still have to work, and that motivation pulls me back into searching for patterns in the pictures.

Was it the types of houses? I shake my head. No; our town is an eclectic group of craftsmans, Dutch colonials, and renovated farmhouses from when the highway was originally built.

Any similarities between the victims? Again, no; ages and occupations rarely overlap and when they do, it's incidental.

I jump when Marco puts a hand on my shoulder, the warmth seeping from his palm down past the fabric of my shirt and into my skin. His grip is gentle but firm and I'm just about to ask what's wrong when I follow his pointed finger to the row of photographs below all the broken glass and cracked brass, below the insurance photos of the dented wood floors and splintered doorways.

“Every victim had one, right?” Marco murmurs, his voice rumbling through his chest.

I flash back to the scene of the first crime, with Levi's French Bulldog – all jowls and skin and eyes that matched his owner's seriousness and disdain.

I slap my hands down on the table in front of me, the weight of the realization hitting me like a punch to the gut and making me double over. Petra and Hanji: Craftsman with a Basset Hound, who's ears are so long they need to pull them back when she eats because she's too old and too tired to take care of the cumbersome things herself.

My mind is whirring in full gear now as the pieces fall into place. Nile Dock: Farmhouse with a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who is the stupidest, sweetest, and most well-behaved dog Jean has ever seen.

Ymir and Historia's Australian Shepard in their townhouse; a dog who gets so excited she loses control of her tail and knocks things off their coffee table without realizing.

From Pugs to Pomeranians, Dobermans to Dauchshunds, the one thing they all have in common. Colourful furs, sparkling eyes and wet noses.

“Dogs,” I breathe as it hits me, “They all have _**dogs**_.” The room spins but Marco has his hand on my shoulder and suddenly I'm laughing, we _**both**_ are. We've spent four days on this fucking abysmal case and the answer was staring up at us with doe-eyes and smiling faces.

My stomach hurts from my cackling and usually I'd be self conscious about the sharpness of my laugh, the wheezy breathes I take, but Marco's laugh is just as bad, with his snorting and chortles and dimpled cheeks.

“Can you _**believe**_ it?” I gasp, “They broke in just to pet the – ?” I turn to Marco and were both breathless, both shaking with giggles and the hand he has on me tightens reflexively. His cheeks are flushed, hair tousled and I catch flecks of gold in his irises, shining with mirth.

I can't help but think of how incredible he looks, how undignified and silly and breathtaking he is, and the feeling swells in my chest and stutters my heart.

He leans in and the air between us catches in my throat, igniting my blood. His smile is lopsided and a little unsure, but when he pulls me in I don't hesitate, pressing us together and finally connecting those magnets that pull me in. His lips are chapped and dried when he kisses me, tasting of stale coffee and the tiniest hint of mint but he's warm and comforting and I hum softly, a little noise at the back of my throat that urges him onward.

My brain wants to explode, to set off fireworks or alarms or whatever but the pounding of my heart takes over for me and lets me melt into this bliss and fade into the way Marco's thumb rubs slow circles into my shoulder, his tongue brushing languidly against mine.

Of course, work never quits and at least that part of my mind is awake enough to shake me from my reverie. Not that I want it to but _**dammit**_ I need to sleep, and Marco probably does, too.

I try not to think too hard about those two paths crossing.

“Crime first,” I mutter against his lips before pressing another peck to his cheek, “Kisses later.”

Marco hums reluctantly, but he doesn't let go of my shoulder. Instead, he cocks his head to the side, and the way he breathes against my skin makes me shiver. “Is that a promise, Jean?”

He grabs my jacket off the table for me, extending it to me with a playful tilt of his head before I can even respond. My brain is still on the form of his lips around my name and my heart is soaring and trying to destroy itself all at once.

_**Well**_.

I swallow thickly and force a smirk back at him as we race out of the office. I pull up Chief Erwin's phone number with trembling, excited fingers, and feel like my smile is going to split my face open.

The text I shoot him is short but precise as we slide into Marco's sleek, black car, and it buzzes just moments later with a response.

> **From: Jefe**
> 
> _Pick me up. ill be ready in 5_

The clock on Marco's dashboard reads four am and we're barely out of the parking lot before I'm conked out in the passenger's seat, the aftertaste of mint still on my tongue.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Super shout out to Rhetoricfemme who constantly gives me feedback because she and I keep going back and forth and spitting JM at each other and she is wholly responsible for the stupid twist.
> 
> The prompt for today was "Pattern/Story" and for some reason I went to a police procedural. Some day I will write angst. Some day.


End file.
